


Take a Picture, It'll Last Longer

by bluspirits



Series: Defensive Maneuvers [4]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Depression, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 18:38:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7981960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluspirits/pseuds/bluspirits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica's doing okay. Matt's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Picture, It'll Last Longer

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic contains some discussions of suicide. Nothing graphic, and there are no actual attempts or actions, just talking, but if that's something you're uncomfortable with, I wouldn't recommend reading this. If anything here is wrong or offensive, just tell me and I will edit or delete it. I don't want to hurt anyone with this fic. 
> 
> This is a fill for the hurt/comfort square on my Daredevil Bingo card. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! :D

Jessica Jones is crouched on the edge of the rooftop of the building where she works, camera in her hands. She looks through the viewfinder at the people on the street, taking a picture or two when she sees someone who catches her interest. She adjusts the zoom ring to get a better shot of a man walking his dog and shifts back to make sure she won’t lean too far off the roof trying to take the picture. It’s dark and a little chilly out, especially on the roof. She pulls her scarf up and shivers a little. 

Her phone rings and she pulls it out of her pocket, intending to silence it until she sees it’s Trish. 

“Working late?” Trish asks when Jessica picks up. 

Jessica smiles. “Up late. But not working.” 

“Good. You need a break.” she pauses, “You want to come over tomorrow? Have lunch?” 

“Sure,” Jessica agrees absently, adjusting the camera’s focus and taking another picture.

“And you’ll actually show up?” Trish asks fondly. 

“Yeah. Have some faith.” 

“Oh, I do. Just don’t want you getting sidetracked by a case or something.” 

“I won’t. You’re more interesting than any case.” 

“Aw. You’re sweet.” 

“Don’t tell anyone.” 

“I won’t. See you tomorrow?” 

“Yeah.” Jessica smiles as she ends the call. She takes a deep breath and looks up at the sky for a few seconds. Things aren’t terrible right now. Or, this week, at least. She hasn’t drank as much, there’s been no nightmares, none of her friends are mad at her, she’s been just a little more relaxed. She’s starting to get anxious, because she knows this is going to end soon. 

She takes some more pictures so she doesn’t have to think about the impending possibility of a relapse. 

She hears the door creak open behind her and lowers the camera slightly, turning around. Matt closes the door behind him and walks over to where Jessica is sitting. He’s in the Daredevil armor, but with the helmet off and in his hands. 

“Hey,” he says, and Jessica nods in acknowledgement. She raises her camera again and turns back to the street, watching him sit next to her out of the corner of her eye. He sits there, head tilted a little, like he’s listening to something, maybe her camera, counting out the photos she takes, maybe the people walking down below, maybe her heartbeat. He looks calm and peaceful. She’s a little tempted to turn and take a picture of him, but it feels a bit too personal and kind of invasive, so she takes a picture of the woman chasing pigeons instead. 

He doesn’t say anything for a pretty respectable amount of time. But eventually, the silence gets the better of him. 

“You seem-” he pauses, and Jessica frowns. If he has to think about what he’s going to say, she’s not sure she’s going to like what he ends up with. “Better,” he settles on. 

She bites her lip to keep from letting out a sarcastic laugh and takes another picture. She doesn’t look at him. “Better? Better than what?” 

“Better than angry, tense, and drinking til you pass out every night,” he says without any hesitation or apology. 

She kind of wants to punch him. The more she’s around him, the more she’s sure that’s a normal thought for most people who interact with him. But she is the tiniest bit grateful he doesn’t ask why she does any of those things. 

“Figured I’d try stalking people instead of drinking for a bit. See how it goes.” she rolls her eyes. He won’t see it, but she’s sure he can figure it out from her tone. 

“Whatever works,” Matt says agreeably, and Jessica is sure that he’s speaking from experience. 

“Why are you here?” she doesn’t mean for it to come out so cold, but she doesn’t try to correct her tone once it’s out there. 

“Heard you up here, thought I’d see what you were doing,” he shrugs. It sounds too casual. A thought flashes through her head and comes out her mouth before she can stop it. She almost wants to laugh at it, but it isn’t the most ridiculous thing (and it’s not funny). He might not know that angry, tense, and drunk are normal for her now. 

“You didn’t think I was gonna-” she cuts herself off. 

“What?” Matt asks, with a small and forced smile, even though he seems like he knows what she was going to say. “I thought maybe you’d be throwing things at people, but that was about the worst of it.” 

He sounds totally honest too. She sighs, shakes her head, and tries to forget she ever thought about it. She takes a couple more pictures. Matt turns the mask over in his hands. 

“Have you been sleeping?” he asks a minute later, and it sounds like he’s asking for real, not just trying to find an excuse to give her shit about her sleep schedule, so she considers the question. 

She hasn’t really slept that much this whole week, (which does factor into the no nightmares part on her list of improvements this week.) But she’s not going to tell him that. 

“Yeah. Some.” she doesn’t mention that some means about three hours a night. 

“So not much,” he translates, nodding, and Jessica doesn’t bother to deny it. 

“How could you tell?” she asks, a little sarcastically, expecting some kind of explanation involving her heartbeat or how she smells tired or something. 

“Lucky guess,” he just shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. He doesn’t seem like he gets much sleep either. It makes sense that he might recognize it in her too. 

“Nightmares, insomnia, or something else?” he asks. 

“All of the above,” she answers, keeping her voice cold and short and hoping that will hold off any more questions. 

He nods. There’s a few minutes of silence in which Jessica gets some good pictures. 

“You never asked how I do this,” Matt says quietly, gesturing at the Daredevil helmet to indicate what ‘this’ is. It comes out of nowhere, but if he’s going to be talking, she appreciates the subject change. 

Jessica looks over at him. “No. I didn’t. Did you want to tell me?” 

He shrugs. She takes it as a ‘I don’t really want to explain, but I would if you asked’. 

“Okay then,” she says. 

“Okay then,” he repeats, with a hint of a smile on his face. She said the right thing. 

“You got anywhere to be?” she asks, nodding down at the streets below them. 

Matt shakes his head. “Not right now. Why? You want me gone?” 

“No, just worried about you taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to me.” 

“Don’t worry. I don’t have anything better to do right now.” 

“I think I should be offended by that,” Jessica says, raising an eyebrow. 

“Probably.” he grins. 

“No one out there needing your help?” she pushes. 

“No. Not yet. And I don’t have much else to do.” 

“You’ve got no life,” she says, shaking her head and smiling a little. 

“Says the woman on the roof taking pictures of strangers,” Matt snaps back, but he doesn’t sound too insulted. 

“Yeah. Photography. It’s a hobby.” 

“Martial arts. It’s a hobby,” Matt defends. 

“Not the way you do it.” she shakes her head. 

“Fair,” he agrees with a small smile. 

Jessica takes the moment and turns to him, taking a picture before she can decide differently or he can stop her. Matt, face only half lit from the roof’s doorway, head tilted down, like he’s looking at the mask in his hands, hair a mess, a real smile on his face. She’ll delete it later. She doesn’t keep too many of the photos she takes on nights like these. 

“Did you just take a picture of me?” he asks, looking up. He doesn’t sound upset, just curious. 

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she says sharply, looking away, a little embarrassed to be caught, even though she knew she would be. 

“Why?” he asks. 

“Why? Because I don’t want you thinking you’re some kind of model or something.” 

“No, why’d you take the picture? Why do you do that?” he means the pictures in general, and not specifically why she took the one of him, she can tell. She’s not sure if that’s better. On one hand, she isn't sure she can explain why she’d want a picture of Matt smiling, but on the other hand, she really doesn’t want a broader conversation about her coping methods. 

Jessica drops her camera for a second, letting it bounce against her jacket. She sighs, fiddling with the lense of the camera. 

“It’s relaxing. It’s like another world, you know? Looking at all the different people. Something simple and repetitive that I can focus on instead of thinking about stuff.” she shrugs and doesn’t look at Matt. This feels too personal. Matt nods and stays silent. 

Jessica stands and walks down the roof a little, trying to get a different angle. It isn’t a rejection, she isn’t telling him she wants him to leave, and she knows Matt can tell. He waits a few minutes before slumping after her. He’s seemed slower, flatter tonight. She can’t see any obvious injuries, so it’s not that. 

“Jessica?” he says, and she looks at him. The smile is gone. She knew it wouldn’t last long. 

“Huh?” 

“Have you ever wanted to die?” he says this absently, fingers twitching, not facing her, head turned towards the streets below them. 

Oh fuck. She can guess where this is coming from. Shit. 

She reaches out and grabs his wrist like she’s going to physically hold him on this plane of existence. He doesn’t move. She doesn’t say anything for a long time. 

“Yeah. Once or twice,” she finally says, deciding honesty is the best idea here. She hasn’t wanted that in a while though. Matt nods, but is quiet for a bit.

“I think sometimes maybe I should die,” he says absently, not facing her. 

A few minutes ago, this statement would have thrown Jessica a lot more. Now, considering the questioning that got them here, she can’t say she’s too shocked. 

She wants to grab him, shake him and tell him to stop thinking that, but she knows that won’t work and is probably one of the least effective things she could do. So she just nods and tries to think of something to say. She’s not sure why he chose to bring this up now, but she recognizes that it can take a lot to say it out loud, so she bites down her urge to yell. 

She might have been silent for too long, because Matt leans away from her and takes his wrist back. 

“Yeah. Sorry. Um. Forget I said that.” Matt stands, and it’s dark, but she thinks he’s shaking a little. He mumbles something else, but she can’t hear it. 

“I need to go. There’s-” he pauses, scrunching up his face, obviously searching for an excuse. “crime happening.” 

From his expression, she can tell he knows how unconvincing he sounds. She doesn’t comment on it. She’s not quite sure she should let him leave, but by the time she’s thought of that, he’s already gone. 

The camera hangs from her neck, forgotten for the moment. She leans back. 

Okay. She needs to do something. She has no idea what, really, but she has to. 

She can see Hope, blood pouring from her neck, she can see every one of his victims, hanging, stabbed, garden shears through their heads. 

She knows, logically, that it’s not at all the same situation with Matt, that it’s depression rather than mind control, but her immediate reaction is panic. Godammit, she is not going to watch another person kill themselves. 

\---

Jessica slams her shoulder into the door of Matt’s apartment. He’s not home. She made sure of it. Didn’t want him to be here. This isn’t the sort of thing you ask permission to do. Better to just do it, and worry about consequences later. 

She isn’t using her full strength, so the door groans, but doesn’t open. She looks around the hallway, checking for witness, and wonders how annoyed Matt will be. 

She decides it doesn’t matter, and takes a step back, then charges forward, shoulder first. The door flies open, wood shattering. She stumbles through, then stops herself, straightening and looking back at the broken door. She probably could have been more subtle. She pushes the door back into place and adjusts it until it blocks the hallway from view and looks vaguely functional again. 

Then she pulls a plastic bag from her pocket. She walks to Matt’s bathroom, and begins to look around, searching for pill bottles. She isn’t that surprised when all she finds is ibuprofen. She leaves it and heads for the kitchen, dropping the bag on the coffee table. She finds all the knives she can see and brings them over to where she left the bag, dropping sharp ones in and putting butter knives on the table to return to the drawers. 

Jessica is standing in the middle of Matt’s apartment like that, kitchen knives dangling from her fingers, when Matt comes in. She stares at the knives, eyebrow raised, as if assessing their danger. Then she shrugs and drops them into the plastic bag lying open on the table. 

“Better safe than sorry,” she says to him as if that’s a real explanation. 

“What the hell,” Matt says. 

She picks the bag up from the table, and there are at least four more knives in it, and a pair of scissors. 

She waves a hand at the rest of his apartment. “Went through your bathroom already. Nothing but ibuprofen there, and I don’t think that’s too dangerous. Pretty sure I got all the sharp stuff. Unless you're hiding more knives somewhere.” 

Matt crosses his arms. “I repeat. What the hell?” 

“What you said the other night. I’m a little worried about you,” she says reluctantly and bites her lip. That’s probably enough information for him to figure out what she’s doing, and she’s a little worried about how he’s gonna react. He frowns. Yeah, not happy. 

“Worried about _me_?” he laughs bitterly, and Jessica tenses for a fight. “I’m worried about you. I hear you have panic attacks at least once a week, you’re always tense and angry, you drink like you think it might fix something! 

She flinches hard. She’s sure he notices, but he continues anyway. “But I don’t break into your home, I don’t do anything like this.” 

“No, you just invade my privacy, and worm your way into my life. And don’t pretend you weren’t planning on breaking into my apartment! I’m just trying to help! I don’t want to watch another person kill themselves!” she doesn’t care how upset he is, she isn’t taking this shit. 

“I don’t want your help! I don’t need it!” 

“I think you need a lot of fucking help!” she takes a deep breath and a couple of steps back. They’ve reversed positions, Jessica now standing in the doorway. Matt begins to curl in on himself, anger draining out of him. 

She flexes her fingers, reminding herself not to punch him or anything else around her and seriously considers leaving. For reasons she’s choosing not to examine, she wants to help him, but it isn’t her obligation to force her help on him when he doesn't want it. She’s about ready to turn around and walk out when he speaks again. 

“I’m not going to do it, Jessica,” he says, voice much quieter. She stays and waits, breathing deep, trying to let the anger evaporate. (it doesn't entirely work). She thinks he might say more. She thinks he needs someone to listen. 

“It’s just, some days, most days now, I’d like to stop existing. I’m not at making it happen yet though, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be.” he rubs the back of his neck. 

“I can get that, yeah,” she says slowly. He tilts his head and she knows he’s listening to her heartbeat, checking if she’s lying. She isn’t. After the accident, things were really shitty. That please let this stop feeling was pretty constant for a long time there. Trish helped a lot, but it was hard. So yeah, she knows the feeling. (and she can’t help but feel a bit angry he thinks she might be lying)

“Sit down, asshole,” she says, not unkindly, pointing at the couch. He does, and Jessica flops down next to him. He curls up, she stretches her legs out. She doesn’t ask him anything, not whether he wants to talk, not how he feels right now. She just waits. If he wants to say any more, he will. 

He opens his mouth a few times but doesn’t say anything. It takes a while before he talks. 

He won't face her, and she thinks he might be trying to pretend she isn't there. His voice is quiet, and while it takes a bit to start, once the words come out, he doesn't seem like he can stop, even though he looks like he wants to. 

“My life, it’s not worth anything. All I’ve ever done is hurt people. It’s what I’m made for. Everyone I’ve known, they’re better off without me. Most of them figured that out before I did, but,” he laughs brokenly. “My life, it wasn’t worth hers. She died saving me, and I think that might have been the biggest mistake she ever made.” 

His fingers play with the trim of the couch cushions, and he still doesn’t face her. She thinks he’s close to crying. 

Jessica doesn’t know who this she Matt’s talking about is. But she thinks she should say something now. So she does: “Dying won’t bring her back.” 

He turns to her. She was wrong. He isn’t close to crying, he is crying. “You think I don’t know that?” 

She shrugs. “Just thought it might need repeating.” 

“Thanks,” he says, voice breaking a little. He tilts his head back so he's facing the ceiling. “God, I'm sorry for yelling at you. And for bothering you with this. You’ve got problems too. Worse ones.” 

“Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about them right now, so.” she shrugs. 

“Are you okay, Jessica?” he asks, and she stares back at him flatly. Of the two of them, only one is crying right now. Yeah, she’s fucked up, she’ll admit it, but right now, the one who isn’t okay is him. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Right now,” she adds when he tilts his head like he’s looking a lie. 

“How’d you get there?” 

She doesn’t mention that she’s sure this break isn’t permanent. “I don’t know.” 

“Yeah, thought so.” 

She watches tears run down the side of his face. “I want to just go to sleep forever, but that’s not really an option, is it?” 

Jessica shakes her head. 

“Just got to keep fighting,” he says, voice resigned. 

“Just gotta keep fighting,” she agrees. 

“You’re gonna feel better. Eventually.” she knows this means nothing, doesn’t help him, but she says it anyway. 

“Doesn’t feel that way now.” Matt mumbles. 

She also knows that. 

There's a long silence, and she shifts in her seat. 

“Bye,” he says quietly. She looks at him. He’s slid down so that he’s laying on side. His face is calm, but he’s struggling to hold it that way. 

“Do you want me to leave?” she asks. Honestly, this is emotionally shitty for her, and she really doesn't know how to help. She hates herself a little for how ready she is to leave. But she’ll stay if she has to. 

It looks like he shrugs, but with one shoulder in the couch it’s a little hard to tell. 

“Yes or no question, Matt.” 

“No. Stay?” he looks guilty for saying this. 

She nods and waits. Eventually he closes his eyes. She pulls out her phone, but keeps an eye on him. His breathing is even, she thinks he’s asleep. She lets herself relax too. She closes her eyes after a bit, but doesn't go to sleep. The chances of having a nightmare are too high, and she is definitely not doing that in Matt's apartment right next to him. 

Matt twitches, and she opens her eyes. He’s trembling, and possibly crying again. Nightmare. 

Jessica stands, looking down at him. He's curled up completely. 

She leans down and picks up the couch, lifting it a couple of inches then dropping it. Matt startles awake, hand snapping out to grab her wrist. She pulls her arm free from his grasp. 

“Feeling better?” she asks. 

“Not really. Sorry.” Matt shakes his head. “But thanks for staying.” 

She nods. She didn’t expect any change, honestly. 

“You don’t have to stay,” Matt says, as Jessica shifts, putting her hands in her pockets. She’s not sure he’s being honest, but she never said she was a hero. She takes the out. 

“Matt.” Jessica stops in the doorway. “For the record, I like you alive.” 

He doesn’t say anything. 

\---

She stops by the next day, this time with a full plastic bag. She drops it on his kitchen counter as he walks over. 

"I can't talk you into feeling better. Not my thing. But, uh. I brought some food, which you will be paying me back for a some point, and some band-aids, because I know you're bleeding somewhere." she begins pulling things out of the bag, just to give herself something to do. "You need to take care of yourself, asshole." 

He stops a few feet away from her. "I'll try," he mumbles.

Jessica looks over at him. "That's a start."


End file.
